1. Field
One embodiment of the present invention relates to an electronic equipment and a method for displaying images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic equipments, such as a video recorder and a personal computer, are generally capable of recording and reproducing various video data including TV broadcast program. Each of the video data stored in the electronic equipment is given with a title name. However, it is difficult for a user to know what is contained in each of the video data only from the title names. Therefore, the user is required to play the video data to know what is contained in the video data. However, even when the video data is played using a variable speed playback function, it takes much time to play the video data having a long length of time.
There is proposed an electronic equipment having a character browsing function. In a character browsing mode provided in the electronic equipment, facial images of characters appearing in video contents are displayed to in arranged manner to allow the user to browse the characters. An example of such electronic equipment is disclosed in JP-A-2001-309269.
However, when facial images of characters are simply arranged as described in JP-A-2001-309269, the user cannot know at which time point the characters appear in the video contents. The user may want to play the video contents only for the time points when the desired character (or a group of characters) appears. Accordingly, there is a demand for an implementation of a new function for showing the user which character appears in the video contents at each time points. In addition, there is also a demand for an implementation of similar new function for showing the user an image that allows the user to know the details of the video contents at each time points.